We Were The Greatest
by mulberrychoc
Summary: Mostly canon compliant bits of Sara O'Neill's life as it intersects with Jack, SG1 and the SGC. Starts with a episode tag for "Cold Lazarus" - the aftermath for Sara O'Neill. Will be added to at irregular and unreliable intervals.
1. Broken

**We Were The Greatest**

 _Broken _

* * *

_Episode Tag for "Cold Lazarus" - the aftermath for Sara O'Neill.  
_

 _A/N: I'm hoping to write more snippets of Sara and Jack over the years of SG1, to weave their story around canon. However, there is no substantial plot or over-riding story here, and no big ending. It's just little slices of Sara's life as it intersects with Jack, SG1 and the SGC.  
_

* * *

When Sara O'Neill had signed the papers, dutifully recited the cover story, smiled the fake smiles and closed her front door behind Major Davis, she leaned up against that door and shut her eyes. She listened to her own breathing, her own heartbeat, unable to summon the energy to do anything in this moment but exist. Physically, she wasn't tired; it was her mind, her spirit that reeled with exhaustion. It was too much, the razor sharp edges of the shattered pieces of her life slicing into her soul and bleeding her dry.

Some time later, the mundane reality of sore feet and bodily needs seeped in and the blankness receded. She moved down the hall to the half-bath and took care of the latter before staring at herself in the mirror. She looked so normal and the disconnect between appearance and reality ate at her until a flash of anger burned away the blanket of lethargy. Drying her hands with quick, sharp movements, she marched to the kitchen and picked up the phone.

Reaching Jack's answering machine did not improve her mood and she didn't hesitate to try the lone number she had for his 'workplace'. A receptionist type answered her chirpily and offered to take a message. Sara argued and insisted until she was transferred. This layer was security and they were not chirpy. Sara did not care; she put a mother's steel in her voice and stubbornly demanded they put her through. Eventually, she was transferred again, this time to a Captain Reed*** who courteously identified herself as General Hammond's aide. Captain Reed listened to Sara, blandly replied that she would inquire if Colonel O'Neill was available and put Sara on hold.

Sara hated the USAF standard hold music.

" _Sara?"_

She wished she could unload her emotions on him.

" _Are you ok?"_

She wished he would let her in, let her comfort him because the exhaustion and pain she heard in his voice tore at her heart.

" _Sara!?"_

"Jack. I… no. No, I'm not ok. It isn't… I can't..." She stared at the counter-top in front of her, seeing again the not-Jack convulsing in agony, seeing again the not-Charlie beside real-Jack. "Jack, I need to talk."

The silence stretched out for a while. Sara knew she had stepped over a line; she had pushed and demanded to speak to him when he was on duty. She was intruding inappropriately on his work.

" _Sara-"_

"I know. I know this isn't the right way, that I'm interrupting. God only knows what I'm interrupting!"

" _It's ok."_

"I need to talk about what happened. What I saw… who I saw. I don't… I don't need to talk to you – oh! I didn't mean it like that! I always want – need – you. Always. But I guess I should be talking to a counselor. Only I know there are secrets and the cover story so I need someone who knows, who has that clearance."

" _Sara."_

She found herself smiling through tears at the soft, aching way he said her name and grabbed a tissue to avoid sniffing. "I should have waited until you were off duty. I'm sorry. I just wanted… I needed to hear you."

" _It's ok. I'll sort it out, get you the contact details of someone who can help."_

"Thank you."

" _Sara..."_

"I know, I'll get off the phone and stop bothering you -"

" _Sara!"_

She shut up.

" _I'm off duty at 1700. I could drop by if..."_

Sara couldn't speak through the tears. _Oh, Jack._

"… _you're free. Um… I can bring some beer. And pizza."_

She scrubbed at her eyes with another tissue. "I'll be here. Thank you, Jack."

" _I'd better go do stuff so I won't be late."_

"Yeah. Go do your crazy stuff. I'll see you later." Sara hung up, blew her nose and dumped the tissues in the bin. The conversation had somehow managed to patch over enough of the cracks to let her keep moving, to go back to pretending she wasn't broken. She had stuff to do too.

* * *

*** A Major General like Hammond is here should have an aide, who should be a Lt or a Captain. In the episode Fire and Water, at the wake for Daniel at Jack's house, Jack is telling a story about Daniel to an unidentified woman. Since she had to be from the SGC, I decided to appropriate her for Hammond's aide, call her Kate Reed and make her a captain. She'll show up as a cameo in a few future snippets.


	2. Jigsaws

**We Were The Greatest**

 _Jigsaws_

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter covers a time period of several months, from just after "Cold Lazarus" to shortly before "Solitudes"._

* * *

Three days later, Sara made herself call the number Jack had given her and made her first appointment.

Dr Emma Martinez's office had the standard psychologist's couch, infinite supply of tissues and little paper cups of water. It also had a big square coffee table that was rarely empty. Sometimes it was jigsaw puzzles; sometime it was poster-size sheets of paper with crayons. A few times, there was lego and the day Sara walked in and saw a half-built lego plane, she cried for the whole hour.

It took time but Sara had time to give. Piece by piece, week by week, the sharp points and cutting edges of her splintered self were gently dulled and blunted. Enough that she could breath without agony. Like the jigsaw puzzles, Emma helped her put herself back together again.

"Time doesn't heal," Emma said bluntly when Sara raged that it still dominated her life. "It will still hurt, still choke you for the rest of your life. You can't erase that; losing a child is a wound to your soul. Time can only help you build a cushion, a shield, ways to set it aside and focus on today and tomorrow."

* * *

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Sara knew them all, had been talked through them more than once. She still bounced back and forth between them, sometimes feeling all of them at the same time and the irrationality of it all provoked her. Emma let her cry, let her rant and rage, expressed no judgement when she contradicted herself.

"It's about more than your son."

Sara was concentrating on the lego that was on the table today, cursing her short fingernails as she tried to pry two pieces apart. "What?"

"You've lost more than Charlie."

When she'd first come here, Sara would have had a sarcastic come back to that statement but now… Emma did not usually make statements like that – she asked questions until Sara figured out the answer herself. "Um. Yes?" She put the lego down again and found herself fiddling with her wedding ring. Why did she still wear it?

Emma waited.

When the words came, they spilled out in a hurry. "I lost Jack," Sara knew that, she'd thought she'd dealt with it. "He left, or fled. Shut me out. Wouldn't look at me… wouldn't _touch_ me. Goddammit, he _still_ won't touch me! He… I don't know, he's reaching out and I want… he's brought round pizza and beer a few times, we watch a movie together, but he doesn't sit next to me. He sits _across the damn room_." Sara hadn't let herself notice before; after all, she'd initiated the divorce and she could hardly expect him to treat her like a wife after that. But now the words had been said and her anger at his rejection was burning all the brighter for her repression of it.

With a few half heard prompts. Sara continued for over half an hour, circling around and around the feelings she'd finally let out. She ranted about her experience with the entity that had impersonated Jack, paced and swore, admitted to nightmares where Jack had Charlie back but was keeping her away from both of them. It was all dragged out,

That night, all alone in the big house that a small boy and his dad had once filled with energy and life, she found a measure of peace at last. Half-asleep, she pondered what her old counselors would have said if she'd mentioned the damn mimic-entity. It was a mark of how far she'd come that she found their imagined disbelief and worry to be amusing.

* * *

It was mostly women and children that Sara saw in Emma's waiting room, and no one usually talked to one another. But one day, Sara was early for her session and when Emma's door opened, a girl shot out and tripped over one of the chairs. Instinct took over, Sara's hands went out to catch her and she suddenly had her arms full of a sobbing child.

Sara held her until her tears slowed, rocked her and spoke the little soothing words that mother's do. "Cassie," she said, echoing the girl's mother who hovered close. "Cassie." When the girl was calm enough to let go of Sara's sweater, Sara tried to hand her back but she yanked herself away from her mother's hand.

"I don't want you!" Cassie shouted. "I want Sam! Or Jack! Or Daniel!"

Sara looked at the girl's mother, empathized with the pain in her eyes and the exhaustion in her stance. " _Can I help?"_ she mouthed so Cassie wouldn't hear, and when the other woman shook her head slightly but smiled a _thank you_ for the offer, Sara absented herself. Parenting was hard enough without strangers underfoot at what was obviously a difficult moment.

The next time she saw Cassie, it was in the park. And she was with Jack. Sara felt the sight hit her in the gut and let it go. Crossing the grass to the swings, she waved cheerfully to Cassie and when the girl jumped off the swing to run up and say hello, Sara basked in the warmth of that innocent smile.

"Cassie?" Jack said in the startled, disconcerted tone of a parent-figure whose child does something entirely unexpected.

"What's your name? Mom couldn't tell me, and I didn't know how to find you again and say sorry-"

"Cassie!" Jack knew he was missing something here.

Sara dropped to a crouch to put her level with Cassie and ignored Jack. It felt rather good. "I'm Sara, sweetheart. And you don't need to say sorry, darling. I understand. Were you referring to him when you said you wanted Jack that day?"

"Ye-es… Do you know-?"

"Yes," Jack cut in with resignation. "Sara and I know each other." He gave Sara that _look_. The one that said he wanted an explanation when the kid wasn't listening.

A brilliant smile was her answer to that, and it took his breath away.

* * *

 _End note: Emma is basically the counselor to the wives, children and, as time goes on, aliens-living-on-earth of the SGC. Obviously, one of her 'clients' is Cassandra Frasier and the little scene mentioned here? Well, no kid is going to always be sanguine about losing their entire world and accepting someone new as their mom. I'm sure Cassie and Janet had some pretty bad days at times, especially in the first few months!_


End file.
